WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Host city leaders have been waiting three years to find out which 2026 FIFA World Cup matches are coming to their markets. Friday’s final draw at the Kennedy Center helped narrow down the possibilities, but they’ll have to wait until Saturday for FIFA to release the final schedule in a separate event.
“At the moment, it’s a little bit like Christmas Eve,” Philadelphia host city executive and CEO Meg Kane told SBJ moments after the draw. “It’s like we have an idea of what presents might be under the tree, but we’re not sure what Santa’s going to deliver.”
Cities have known for more than a year how many matches they will host during each phase of the competition, but only the host countries’ group stage matches have been identified. For the rest of the group stage, they have also known which of the 12 group letters they are associated with. Those letters -- Group G or Group K, for example -- mean a lot more with the draw results now determined.
“When you see in Group C that Brazil and Morocco are there, when you see in Group E Germany, when you see France in Group I and you see England and Croatia in Group L, those are obviously enormous opportunities and exciting possibilities for match play in Philadelphia,” Kane said.
The stakes of the draw and schedule release are high for host cities hoping to maximize the generational opportunity to put their city on display for a global audience, raise funds to cover the costs of hosting and drive economic impact. The difference between hosting a country like Spain, Germany or England, with a large fan base that travels well, and a team like Iran or Haiti, whose fans might not be able to travel to the U.S., at all is extremely consequential.
“Anytime you get Argentina, Netherlands, England, Croatia, Japan -- that’s a pretty strong set of teams right there for our five group matches,” said Dallas Sports Commission Exec Dir Monica Paul. “We don’t know technically the match schedule or the match times, but coming out of the draw, I’m pretty ecstatic.”
Paul said she and her delegation in D.C. that includes Dallas World Cup committee co-chairs Dan Hunt and Nina Vaca will immediately look to link up with the federations who are likely to play matches in Dallas.
“We know a lot of their delegations are here, a lot of their delegations will be coming starting as early as Sunday to all the cities just to see training sites, base camps, hotels and get the lay of the land,” Paul said. “They need to make some decisions, especially on the base camps. So, we’re going to be proactive today while we’re here with them and look forward to hosting them next week.”
Following the schedule release on Saturday, countries will home in on their preferred base camp sites, where they will train ahead of the competition and in between matches. Some have been putting together short lists over the past few months. Their deadline to submit their top choices to FIFA, which is running the process, is Jan. 5, so conversations and visits will be intense over the next few weeks. The online brochure currently includes 64 options across the three host countries in both host cities and non-host cities.
